Spanning more than a year with multiple iterations, the series of anti-Google ads have been notable for their negative approach, especially compared to most consumer tech ads, which focus on the wonders of a company's products and services. Apple's 2006 "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC" ads were about as close as we have seen in tech to attack ads, and they used whimsy to make critical points.

But Scroogled, with print, online and TV ads, has tried to sow the seeds of doubt in consumers' minds about how Google handles and mines users' personal information as well as the quality of Google products and services. They're like political ads that paint the opponent as up to something sneaky.

For example, in the latest ad, Microsoft enlisted Rick Harrison of the reality TV show "Pawn Stars" to appraise a seller's Chromebook, which he finds worthless since it is only useful when connected to the Internet.

Harrison throws in this dig, which comes off as post-Edward Snowden paranoia: "Google is always trying to find ways to make more money off of your personal information. This Chromebook hardware makes it even easier for them."

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Another ad spotlighted how Google intersperses shopping results with paid advertisements, while a third trumpeted a Bing vs. Google search blind test, a la The Pepsi Challenge. Bing, of course, emerges as "honest search."

People who have seen Scroogled are more likely to try Microsoft products and services, Microsoft says. "People like brands that are feisty and stand up for themselves," said a Microsoft representative, who says the company's internal measures have found the campaign "incredibly effective." Ten million people have come to the Scroogled site after the Chromebook ad. "With regular consumers, it resonates," the representative said.

Google has treated Scroogled as a joke. When Microsoft opened up a Scroogled online store selling T-shirts, mugs and hats that said "Keep calm while we steal your data," the Mountain View search giant got its own dig in at the Redmond company: "Microsoft's latest venture comes as no surprise; competition in the wearables space is really heating up."

The company declined to comment for this column.

"It makes a mockery of Microsoft's marketing talent," said Rakesh Agrawal, a product strategist based in San Francisco. "Google didn't win search by running a great ad campaign. They had a great product."

Scroogled has struck me as shortsighted as well. Google, Microsoft and most Internet firms are essentially in the same boat, trying to get people comfortable with living online. But the Scroogled ads just emphasize that people should be afraid of stuff they don't understand. It is akin to a tobacco company attacking another over whose cigarettes have more carcinogens with images of people taken away on gurneys. All that does is make all cigarettes look deadly.

Scroogled is a reflection of the combative, turbo-charged style of Steve Ballmer, the company's voluble former CEO. To jazz up Microsoft's marketing, Ballmer tapped Mark Penn, a Washington, D.C., political operative and former pollster in President Clinton's administration, who came up with "Scroogled."

Bringing a new sensibility to Microsoft will be Nadella's first order of business.

With Nadella, a Microsoft employee since 1992, "there's a risk that he will be painted as another Ballmer," said Peter LaMotte, an analyst with Levick, a Washington-based strategic communications consultancy. "He is going to want to shape the company in his own image by getting rid of something that is seen by many as an ineffective campaign."

I am sympathetic to Microsoft's role as gadfly to Google. It has raised important questions about whether Google uses its dominant position in search to gain dominance unfairly in other arenas. Someone, even if it is a self-interested competitor, needs to point out a situation that could result in the Internet being a one-business ecosystem.

I like feisty brands too. And maybe Microsoft benefits with "Scroogled" in terms of perception. But it also stirs up a general anxiety over technology, which is a self-inflicted wound. The ads on their own make us forget that Microsoft is a formidable competitor with impressive tech chops whose best days may be in front of it.